The Return of the Prince
by AshMish111
Summary: The sweet reunion between a mother and son. Companion one shot to The Return of the Queen.


**A.N.: I just couldn't help myself.**

The portrait hanging high in the great hall glowed in the sunlight seeping through the branches carved from the stone that made up the ceiling of the castle home of the ruling family of Greenwood The Great. This was where the parties took place, and it was where early feast celebration preparations had been underway for days. The crowned Prince, Legolas Thranduilion was expected home very soon from his journey to help destroy the One Ring and bring peace to middle earth, and there would be a party for the ages to celebrate the King's good fortune at having his family made whole again.

As it was now, the Hall stood empty and quiet as the decorators had broken for lunch. Well, empty of all but one soul.

The sweet and beloved queen of Greenwood, newly returned from her cursed exile and formerly known as one Kagome Higurashi, stood quietly, somberly, sadly before one of the few great portraits lining the walls.

She'd had the hardest time accepting that her son had essentially gone off to war. He'd been so very small when she'd been flung away from her family, and hearing that Legolas was off fighting darkness and evil had been difficult to accept. She only ever knew him as a child, _her_ child. But standing here as she was, taking in the portrait of him and his father that had been commissioned in the last couple of centuries, all of her happy feelings of return were being swamped by feelings of guilt and sadness. For in front of her was not the likeness of the happy child she would cuddle and sing to, but the visage of a tall, strong, vibrant Elf in his prime. His hair shone the same shade of palest gold as his father's, and his eyes sparkled the same blue as hers, but he'd become his own person, old enough and skilled enough to risk his life for a whole world of people.

She was so proud.

She was so sad.

She'd missed _everythin_ g.

A pair of strong hands circled her waist and pulled her back against a firm chest. She felt a chin rest atop her head, and a pale curtain of hair like silk closed her in from either side.

His breath stirred the hair that sill framed her forehead and her heart fluttered like a trapped bird. Oh she'd missed him, even when she didn't remember him.

"Why does sadness twist around you like the thick branches of an ancient tree, Elloth-nin?"

She took a deep breath, held it, and released , dropping her head back and to the side where it rested on one of his shoulders. He tightened his arms around her and took note of what she'd been gazing at and had a good idea of what must be plaguing her with despair when they should all be so happy.

"I just..."

"Don't."

He stepped back and grasped her shoulders, turning her to face him and lifting her chin with one bent finger until her crystalline eyes met his, eyes he'd so longed to stare into just this way.

Her confusion softened the furrow in his brow, but not his frown at her obvious beratement of herself.

"Do not. I will not blame you for grieving a missed childhood, but do not fault yourself in the process. He will only be _glad_ to have you returned to him, just as I am, just as you should be. There is no blame to lay at your feet."

She sighed and slumped into his embrace, and he caught her with no complaints. Any excuse to be so close to her would be taken, they'd been apart far, far too long.

Her breathing shuddered and he felt a few stray tears soak the fabric of his robe. He stroked her hair and kissed her crown until she peaked back up at him, the happy light returned to her eyes.

"Alright. If there's anything I've learned from this mess, we should hold tighter to happiness than to sorrow. I just can't believe he's so grown. He was just so small when I... when I left."

"When you were _taken_ from us. Make no mistake, Elloth-nin, we have always known your absence here was the result of the treachery of another, and no choice of your own. He has never doubted that had you had a choice, you would never have left him."

She snuggled back into his arms, wrapping hers tighter around him and breathing in his beloved scent, letting it wrap around her like a shroud of safety.

"Thank you Thranduil. You're right, I'll try to forgive myself."

"Of course I'm right, my darling. What else would I be?"

The hall filled with the sound of tinkling giggles and deep chuckles, and the light of returned love.

* * *

Legolas always expected to feel happiness when he finally returned home, but entering his forest did not go quite as he'd expected. The air around him fairly sparkled. It was clean and fresh and light, and the warmth of the sun cast golden streaks across every trunk and blade of grass it touched where it streamed through the canopy of branches and leaves. Birds twittered and squirrels chittered and two fox kits nearly ran right over his toes in their game of chase.

He had expected there to be a certain lightness returned with the destruction of the ring, but he'd also expected that there would be much work to do to finish running off the dark, foul things that had taken over great portions of the wood.

 _'Father has been busy, I see.'_

It lightened his step all the more that there would be time to rest, and he finished his trek home humming a jolly tune and counting the birds that swooped overhead.

* * *

The sun was just beginning to set when his home came in to view, and he quickened his stride, eager to finally put an end to this journey and start a new one.

Something vibrated the air though, some secret left the atmosphere feeling like it was ready to burst with anticipation.

It did not feel foul, but he slowed and entered warily all the same. He could hear the echoes of many footfalls coming from the hall above, and surmised his father must be planning one of his parties. The King himself had never been much for them, especially not since his mother had passed, but it was something his people loved, and so it was a tradition of the previous King he'd not been willing to break. He could just bet this one was about their victory, or his return, or both. He wouldn't mind blowing some steam with elvish wine and loud music, and half wished Gimli and Aragorn could be here to have a _real_ drinking game.

He entered the throne room to look for his father, but what he found there instead left him breathless and dumbfounded.

"Hello, Legolas. Welcome home."

He stopped cold and simply stared, eyes blown wide and the dangerous feeling of warm tendrils of hope creeping up and squeezing his heart. He could scarcely believe what he was seeing. He _must_ be going mad.

"M-mother?"

She smiled a radiant, motherly smile and took several measured steps closer.

"Yes. It's me."

She looked nervous and uncertain, but the same love he'd always seen in her eyes shined in them now and his breath was stolen again.

"Mother... but... but how? _why_?"

"It was time for me to return, and so I did."

"But... but _no one_ returns _here_ from the Halls of Mandos. I don't..."

"I never went there. I wasn't dead. I was sent somewhere else, far away from here. But it was time for me to return to you. So here I am."

She moved closer and framed his face, a face she now had to look _up_ to stare in to. A face that was grown and fully matured, but still held the beloved little boy he'd been when she'd been wrenched from him. He was still staring at her as of she truly didn't exist, frozen where he stood and barely breathing, but she was overcome with her love for him, her mother's heart finally completely whole with his return.

"Oh, my little leaf, how you've grown."

And then he was crushing her in his embrace, and his body shook with his sobs. They lowered themselves to sit on the floor, and she stroked his hair and shushed him while he clung to her waist and became nothing but a young child who had missed his mother desperately.

From a small distance away, concealed behind a decorative pillar, a father watched the sweet reunion between his son, his pride and joy, and the mother he'd lost with a soft smile.

* * *

Legolas sat and listened raptly at the tale his mother spun of her time away from them. She'd been on an adventure as harrowing as his own, and the odds she'd overcome to return home humbled him. He hid his amusement at his father's obvious discomfiture when she got to the part about almost being married off to a demon lord. He grumbled and scooted closer to her, and she grabbed his hand to calm him.

He'd loved watching them when he was younger. Their tenderness with each other had made him feel secure. It was no different now. Except maybe that he was old enough to decide he wanted the same for himself one day.

She expressed that she wished they could meet all the friends she had made, and he expressed the same, until he realized that she could.

"Oh wait, the wedding! You can come and meet them all at the wedding!"

"The... the wedding? Are you getting married?"

"Wha-me? No no, not _me_. Aragorn!"

"Aragorn? Who is Aragorn?"

"Oh right, Uh... Arwen."

"Lord Elrond's daughter? She's getting married?"

"Yes, to a human king. He is a great friend to me."

"A human! Oh, elves loving humans is a complicated history indeed..."

"Ay, but he is of the Dúnedain. He is, at least, longer lived than any other human. And Lady Arwen has already chosen the life of a mortal."

Happiness and sadness weighed equally in his mother's eyes. Glad a girl she'd known and always cared for had found happiness. Sad that her family would have to say goodbye.

"Well, I'd certainly love to come."

"Wonderful! I've been representing our kingdom at such events since I came of age, but perhaps it's time we came as a complete royal family again, eh old man?"

His father seemed visibly put out at the idea of such a spectacle, having no love for formal, officials events, but then his mother clasped her hands under her chin and batted her lashes and before he knew it she was planning their wardrobe and braiding their hair back in several formal styles for practice. They both reveled in her attentions and bright, excited chatter, one naturally much more open than the other.

The lost feeling of family settled warm around them all, a soft cushion around their hearts and souls. It completed the transformation of the great forest kingdom of the elven King.

 **A.N.: And there we have it. Consider this the neat little bow that completely ties up this story. It is finished.**


End file.
